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Show I I I ,I :I 152 NATIONS OF TilE CUNEIFORM WRITING. never was stopped by "barbarians," but only by tho equally pow~ orful and expanding Shomitio and Fig. 86. Fig. 87· Arinn civilization. Tho national Oon FROM PnmruM. GODDMSS li'llO~I PTllRlU~!. spirit of the Ariana in Persia l'Oviv d after five centuries of Greek m1d lteZ.. lenized-Parthian rule. ARDESCIIIR, the son of Babok, and grandson to Sassan, rose up in rebellion against the Parthian Arsacidos, and broke down their supremacy in a long protracted war about tho beginning of the third contur~ of our era (A. D. 214-226: obiit, 240). With his tri~ umph, Persian art revived once more; and although it inherited no connection with the traditions of Achromenian art, it was again characterized by the peculiar richness of the :flowing drapery. Sassanido art is at any rate equal, if not superior, to the contemporary style of Rome; indeed, tho head of A r- Fig. 88. ARDliiSOllJR,148 doschir himself, [38] from a rocksculpture at Persepolis, is a most creditable work of art, scarcely surpassed by any Roman relief of the same period. This " Indian summer" of ancient Persian art lasted but for a short time ; it degenerated under the later kings, and was entirely destroyed by the Mohammedan conquest, in tho seventh century. 'l'ho Kur'an was introduced by fire and sword, and became soon the undisputed law of the Persian race. Accordingly, we might expect tho cessation of artistical life. But here we meet with a most striking evidence in favor of our assertion that art is the result of a peculiar innate tendency of some races, which cannot be crushed out by civil and religious prohibitions. As soon as the Persians recovered their political independence, and fell off from tho Arab Kbalifate of Bagdad, they continued to draw and even to carve human forms, though they never ceased to profess strict adherence to the Km' an. Their style 149 TEXIER, Armtnie, 1852, ii., Pl. 14.8. TilE ETRUSCANS AND TllEIR ART. 133 of art changed now for tho third time ; but neither the instinct for art, nor its habitual practice, has ever yet been destroyed among the true Iranian race of Persia. V.-TllE ETRUSCANS AND TllEIR ART. TnE Etmscans wore a mongrel race, tho result of tho amalgamation of di:fferon t tribes, partly Asiatic, partly European, both Italian and Greek. Their language was mixed, though it is still greatly disputed how far tho Greek elements pervaded tho aboriginal forms of speech. As to tho orio-in of tbo Etruscans: the most probable opinion is, that Lydians from tho ancient 'J'onhcbis in Asia emigrated to Italy and became tho rulers of tho then little-civilized aborigines, who wore either Pelasgic Umbrians, or a Celtic Alpine tribe, which had previously and gradually migrated southwards. 'l'hoy hold the country from the l:>o to tho 'l'ibor, and extended even to southern Italy. Greek immigrants, principally .LEolians from Corinth, settled among them at a somewhat later period, and the mixture of these nationalities produced the hi torical Etruscans. In regard to tho details, the standard authors on Etrw'ia diftcr in their opinions. Raoul-Rochotte t.'tkcs them for P lasgi, modified by Lydians; whereas Niebuhr denies the Lydian immigration related by Ilorodotus; tho Tyrrhonians being with him foreign conquering invaders, but not Lyclians. Still, the monuments of Etruria bear evidence both to the early connection between Etruria and Lower Asia, and to tho existence of an unartistic aboriginal population of Umbri, Siculi, &c. This view is supported by a great oriontalist, Lanci,100 who distingui l10s throe periods of Etru can literature :-1st. When the Phronico- Lydian elements arrived in Italy; 2d., when the Greeks began to mLx with it, after tho advent of Domaratus; and 3d., when Grecian mytholoo·y, letters, and tongue, preponderated. Similar is that of Lonormant,151 in perceiving tbroo phases of civilization in Etrmia -"uno phase asiatiquc, uno phase corinthienno, uno phase athenionne." If, notwithstanding, we remember how, as late as 1848, tho whole stock of words recovered from inscriptions amounted to but thirty-three; 152 and that,-bosidos a few names of deities, like .LESAR, "God" (Osiris ?),-tho formula RIL A VIL "vixit annos," CLAN 100 Parere di MIOIIAlll.ANOI·!LO LANOr intomo all' Iscrizione Etru&ca della &tatua Todi11a de! museo Vnticano, Ronm, Apl'ilo, 1837. m ".Fmgmont sur 1'6tutlc dos vnscs poiutcs nntiquos, Rwue ArcMol., MBy, 1844, p. 87. ~~~ lh·:NIS, Cities atl<l Cemeteries of Btruria, London, 1848, pp. xlii-v, th!lt is to say, suoh words as cannot bo oxplaiuod from Grook and Lo.t.in •·nets. |